I Did A Vegan Challenge For 22 Days And It Made A Huge Impact On My Eating Habits

If you’d asked me a year ago if I’d ever try a vegan challenge, I would’ve answered one way: with a hard hell no. But in the past year I’ve reconsidered many of the “givens” in my life, including the food I eat—call it a quarter-life crisis or a side effect of 2016 (ya feel?). As I’ve done more research on nutrition and the food industry, I’ve started thinking more critically about where my food comes from and how it affects me. (This story was particularly eye opening, if a bit alarmist.)

When I started analyzing what I eat, I realized that most of what made me wary had to do with eating animal products. So I decided to stop—at least for a while. I, Alexa Tucker, lover of pizza, Greek yogurt, and cream in my coffee, decided to give veganism a trial run.

To be honest, I’ve never been a save-all-the-creatures kind of girl (because, bacon), but I’m deeply unsettled by the horrifying farming practices out there and the conditions many animals are kept in. Economical as factory farming may be, I can’t accept that there’s no better way to raise the animals we eat. While, yes, there are many producers raising animals in more humane ways, a lot of our meat and animal products come courtesy of horrific agricultural practices. I also wonder how eating animals that have been treated this way affects my health. Livestock and the agriculture industry are also big contributors of greenhouse gasses, so raising mass numbers of cattle isn’t particularly environmentally friendly, either.

I thought I would feel better not contributing to the demand for animal products for a while. I was willing to try, and interested to see the health effects of overhauling my carnivorous ways.

Before starting my vegan adventure, I spoke with the creator of the 22-day vegan challenge himself to figure out how I was actually going to do this.

So, why 22 days, specifically? Borges’ theory is that at that point, you’ve started to build habits around plant-based eating. After that, you can keep going straight vegan or modify your diet to adopt some of your new knowledge—and if you can walk away eating fewer animal products in a way that works best for you, that’s still a win for your health, animals, and the environment. “The more you eat plant based, the more you realize the incredible benefits there are, and the more you want to do it,” he told me.

In his book (and online) Borges provides a daily meal plan with recipes, and there’s also a fresh meal delivery service if you want to keep things really simple. The principles are straightforward either way, though: There’s no meat, dairy, or other animal products (like eggs) involved, and gluten and soy get the boot, too. There’s also no room for eating out or alcohol, and definitely no processed foods. The goal is to eat clean to the extreme for 22 days with the end-game of resetting your habits to eat more plant-based, whole foods.

Before we even spoke, I knew I was not realistically going to be able to stick to every rule, so Borges helped me devise a modified strategy that I believed I could actually pull off during busy workweeks and without abandoning my social life (and would still help me reap many of the possible benefits). It focused less on specific meals to cook, and more on what foods to look for on restaurant menus and my work cafeteria. This included opting for things cooked with olive oil over butter, going heavy on vegetables and steering clear of most dessert menus. I decided not to completely cut out gluten and soy, since they weren’t part of my original mission (although many wheat and soy products also contain an animal product, so they were ruled out by default). I decided to focus on the cornerstone idea of eating plant-based, vegan foods.

Very Serious Question Number One: Am I doomed to be hungry for 22 days?

I decided to chat with a registered dietitian about the effects I could expect from changing up the ratio of macronutrients in my diet. Getting expert guidance is a good idea when you’re making big changes in your eating habits, and it's important to go in with realistic expectations and the understanding that healthy eating isn't one-size-fits all. If you have a history of disordered eating, you should absolutely check in with your doctor before beginning any new nutrition plan at all, weight-loss oriented or otherwise.

In Borges’ plan breakdown, about 10 percent of your calories come from protein, 10 percent from fat, and 80 percent from healthy carbohydrates (like fruits and vegetables). Even though I wasn’t following his plan exactly (cooking every day and ditching alcohol just aren’t realistic for my lifestyle), that’s a big shift from how much protein and fat I’m used to. I don’t track them, but on average I’d estimate that I get about 20 percent from protein, 30 percent from fat, and 50 percent from carbs. I also wanted to make sure that I knew how to get all the vitamins and minerals I need on a daily basis.

So, my first question (naturally): Was I going to be hungry? The answer was a resounding yes–but mostly at the beginning. My source assured me there’s a light at the end of the hangry tunnel for most people. “It’s common that vegans at the beginning may feel like they’re not getting full, but eventually, you get used to the difference in your diet,” says Sharon Palmer, R.D., author of Plant-Powered for Life. “I would estimate that within two weeks of having a balanced vegan diet, you will feel satiated. Work in snacks to combat hunger, and make sure that each meal has a modest amount of fat (like avocados, olive oil, nuts, or seeds) and a good portion of protein,” she suggested.

But she warned me that I’d actually need to work at this—so my plan to figure it out on the fly wasn’t ideal. “If people merely ‘avoid animal foods’, it’s not enough,” she says. I’d need to seek out healthy fats and high-protein vegan options, as well as pay attention to some major vitamins. First and foremost, vitamin B12, which is important for cognitive function, says Palmer. It’s found in animal foods, so Palmer said I’d need to take a supplement. Calcium and vitamin D, plentiful in dairy, and iron, found most easily in meat, are also harder to get in a vegan diet. I’d need to actually seek out foods to fill in these gaps. (I also decided to take supplements for these to cover my bases, just in case.)

The first week was a major transition, and I was seriously hangry for most of it.

The first couple of days were, surprisingly, NBD. 22 days? Pshh, I thought to myself as I cooked my first meal of zucchini noodles and vegan pesto. But, let me tell you, that new plant-based bliss gave me a false sense of security; despite my solid start, on day three, the hunger set in swiftly and furiously. And it Would. Not. Go. Away.

No matter how big the salad or how hearty the grains, I couldn’t shake that feeling of emptiness. It wasn’t even the flavor of animal protein and fat I craved—it was the feeling of fullness and satisfaction I get from it. I hadn’t realized how hard that sensation would be to get without it.

Watching my coworkers eat pizza on day four was almost physically painful, as was going to a Mexican restaurant with a friend that first weekend (I never realized how teasingly fragrant chicken fajitas are). Week one wasn’t the best—I relied on pasta to fill myself up several times, and I ate vegetables begrudgingly (even the ones I normally love) because they weren’t meat.

During week two, I found my stride and really started to see some of the benefits I’d been told about (and some that I hadn’t, too).

At the start of week two, I vowed to consciously include more protein and fat in my meals, which I’d seriously failed at in week one. As my body and habits adjusted, that insatiable hunger went away. My go-to lentil chili and salad lunch became satisfying, and I’d also started to get more comfortable with creating vegan meals—veggie stir fry and mushroom and kale tacos became favorites. Feeling more satisfied was probably due to a combination of being more thoughtful about my ingredients and acclimating to the lack of meat and dairy.

I started to feel great—like, really great. Palmer had told me that her clients describe a feeling of “lightness” after going plant based, and I started to see what she meant. I had a ton of energy, and I also noticed I was crushing my workouts, setting mile time PRs during my runs and doing more push-ups than I normally could in group classes. This newfound power and ability to push myself harder at the gym was unexpected, but who was I to argue with it?

Unfortunately, I didn’t really see any skin benefits yet, but I also didn’t feel sluggish or bloated once—the 3 P.M. crash went away, which was an unexpected benefit. Coffee was an option, not a necessity.

Midway through the challenge, I was feeling great, but I was still struggling to strike a sustainable balance.

Even though the relentless hunger was gone, the line between feeling great and sickeningly starving was very thin, and I was very quick to cross it. One minute, I’d feel great—the next, I’d feel dizzy, nauseated, and on the verge of passing out. In fact, one afternoon, I did. One minute, I was standing in my friend’s financial district apartment, and the next I was on my back, confused and freaked out. “It’s probably because of, y’know, the veganism,” my friend Jessica offered up. I’d had a quick breakfast six hours or so hours earlier, and while it’s best to eat every three to four hours (said every nutritionist ever), I typically can go that long before lunch without a problem, though I try not to. But this hunger felt like truly running on empty.

I also noticed that this was when I’d make less than stellar food choices. I had to be mindful that it was actually pretty easy to eat unhealthily as a vegan. Oreos? Vegan. Movie theatre popcorn? Vegan. And have you ever had coconut ice cream? Heavenly. It was mainly when I got crazy hungry or felt deprived that I’d reach for a processed bar or packaged snack for a quick hit of energy, rather than for fruits or veggies.

Not that eating a vegan diet means resisting all indulgence. But it’s so much more satisfying when it’s intentional rather than a reflexive move made out of desperation. TinyPrints delivered some really, really, ridiculously good cookies from NYC-based vegan restaurant ByChloe to the office one day, and they fed my soul, I tell you. Healthy? Nah, but zero regrets.

By the time my 22 days were up, I was pretty comfortable being the new vegan me.

After 22 days of living that vegan life, I broke fast with a burger, and it was every bit as magnificent as I’d hoped it would be. But as satisfying as that was, there wasn’t a big part of me that was dying to be done. Aside from the hunger early on and that one fainting incident, it was a good experience. I saved a ton of cash on groceries, fit in some awesome workouts, lost five pounds without even trying, and didn’t cheat once. (I did mess up: About five days before the challenge was over, I ate a tortilla chip that turned out to actually be a sort of organic Dorito. I didn’t mean to. And I didn’t eat another, honest.)

Borges had been right. Over the course of a few weeks, I developed new eating habits that I’m still sticking with more than two months later. I don’t really crave dairy anymore—cheese and ice cream don’t have as much appeal as they used to, and I still take soy milk or almond creamer in my coffee. I’m kind of over eggs, and am more conscious than I used to be about buying high-quality meat from reputable sources. Even though that means I buy less (it tends to be more expensive), I’m cool with it. I no longer feel like a meal is incomplete without animal protein.

Ultimately I decided that, for me, veganism is not a forever thing, but I do feel like I’m doing something good for animal welfare and the environment by eating fewer animal products. I like exercising choice—tofu one day, T-bone another—and not feeling like meat (or a strict diet plan) is controlling me. And if I ever feel like I want to hit the reset button, I’ll take on the 22-day vegan challenge again.